John McLeod Campbell

John McLeod Campbell (May 4, 1800 – February 27, 1872) was a nineteenth-century Scottish minister and Reformed theologian. In the opinion of one German church historian, contemporaneous with Campbell, his theology was a highpoint of British theology during that century.James B. Torrance ranked him highly on the doctrine of the atonement, placing Campbell alongside Athanasius of Alexandria and Anselm of Canterbury. Campbell took his cue from his close reading of the early Church Fathers, the historic Reformed confessions and catechisms, John Calvin, Martin Luther's commentary on Galatians, and Jonathan Edwards' works.

Campbell was born on 4 May 1800 in Argyllshire, Scotland, the oldest child of the Rev. Donald Campbell. His mother died when Campbell was only 6, in 1806. Educated chiefly at home by his father, Campbell was already a good Latin scholar when he went to the University of Glasgow in 1811. Finishing his course in 1817, he became a student at the Divinity Hall, where he gained some reputation as a Hebraist.

After further training at the University of Edinburgh Campbell was licensed as a preacher by the presbytery of Lorne in 1821. In 1825 he was appointed to the parish of Row (now Rhu) on the Gareloch and the Clyde coast. There drunkenness was frequent, fights common, and smuggling ordinary; religion was conceived only as offering safety from the anger of God and so prayers and worship rang hollow and were often hypocritical. There was little joy in their Christianity.

Campbell preached universal atonement; and the presbytery in 1829 reviewed the orthodoxy of his preaching and teaching. At issue was the theology of Campbell in his sermons and its relationship and uniformity with the Westminster Standards which all Scottish ministers agreed to preach and teach at their ordination. A first petition was withdrawn; but a subsequent appeal in March 1830 led to a presbyterial visitation, and an accusation of heresy. Campbell clearly disagreed with the Westminster Confession of Faith's view of a limited atonement, and he was removed from the ministry. The General Assembly, by which the charge was ultimately considered, found Campbell guilty of teaching heretical doctrines and deprived him of his living. Several issues came into play, not least that Campbell did not support either of the theological parties in the Assembly, the Moderates or the Evangelicals. Declining an invitation to join Edward Irving in the Catholic Apostolic Church, he worked for two years as an evangelist in the Scottish Highlands.

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